For months now, as more photos of Apple’s Arizona sapphire plant have emerged, we've heard that the building is now closer than ever to being ready to proceed with production.

As MMi reported in January, construction personnel are working "around the clock" and even on weekends to get the job done by June. Although documents filed with the US International Trade Administration in January revealed Apple’s “go live” target date was sometime in February, it now appears that plans to commence production have only solidified in recent weeks.

According to freshly published reports Wednesday, GT Advanced Technologies - the sapphire manufacturer working with Apple - mass production will begin before the end of 2014. But production to a small degree has already begun, our friends at Apple Insider reveal. "GT's initial production level was said to be small, utilizing just 100 furnaces that are believed to be turned on and running," today's report reads.

The Apple-GT Advanced factory devised under the codename “Project Cascade” will all but certainly be responsible for the production of a new sapphire part bound for a consumer Apple device - either an already existing product or something altogether new.